[Mila Davis] "She fought well. It was an honor to fight beside her." What she didn't mention is that after she raged back to life - damn Spirals.. she attacked Mila. That, well.. would simply be left between those that were there. No serious damage was done..
"I would love to meet her - I don't believe I've had the pleasure yet." Her gaze shifted again to the approaching figure. Another new face. Mila lifted a hand in greeting. She was dark haired, nearly black. Her eyes were the color of approaching storm clouds, a dark grey blue.
"Adam is it then." She smiled again.
[Sorrow] "We've met before," Sorrow comments, quiet to Mila. Her wide mouth has settled into its most neutral expression - which nevertheless curves faintly upward, as if she were always half-smiling. "Under less than ideal circumstances. I'm Kora EyjÛlfsdÛttir, she who offers sorrow to the Nation, cliath skald and daughter of great Fenris, fostered in the Sept of Wind and Rain in Hjaltland, of Aesir's Call."
Hands tucked neatly into the front pockets of her worn jeans, her narrow shoulders square beneath the old black t-shirt, Sorrow's dark eyes fix on Adamidas as she lights up, speaking about her pack. Her own face is still; she glances once at contemplative Lila, before returning her gaze to Adamidas. "I'd like to speak with you, Adamidas-yuf, when you're done here."
[Waking Dream] Here. Exhale. And then, low-voiced, intent: "This is important to me and you won't have heard it before. I'll tell you a story of a Sept I visited.
"Further North, though -- a sea-Sept, a wave-swept. But still, on this continent; off this continent. Place where five islands thrust close to each other, where rock is a bridge; place called the Sept of the Fifth Stone, place where sea-foam spirits gleam and glamour in the shape of wolves when the moon's waxing toward philodox, but still, still, is a Seer's moon. This is a story from when I was a cliath still, and my mission there was to give aid, so that, when my own Sept called for it, aid would be given.
"The Sept of the Fifth Stone was right in the middle of an area that was belabored, see; was under direct attack, much the way this Sept, here -- Maelstrom's Sept -- is under attack. They'd suffered losses, and recently."
Beat. "There was a philodox there. His name is Resurrection and his name is First Call. His name was also, before he died, Fulcrum's Measure. You would've liked to look at him: his hair so dark, and his eyes so bright; his teeth so crooked, his smile was always slanting. Uktena. That's what he was. Uktena, and mistrusted doubly because he followed Bear. His pack's name is -- and is still -- Winter Keeps In Store."
Another beat. "I was there when he died. I heard his last words. They were these: Death is the road to awe. That's what he said. Then he sank his own claws into his belly, pulled out his intestines, held them - gleaming, ropes - in his own hands for the Mistress of the Rite to read. He healed once from these self-inflicted wounds, and he did it again: tore his guts out, displayed them. When he died, he Raged back, too-weak to frenzy, too-close to death to be Rage's lover, and he did it a third time: tore his guts out, roped his intestines around his claws, held them up for the Mistress of the Rite to read. Said, again - in a voice weak as a cub's - Death is the road to awe."
[Mila Davis] Oh yes, one of the many Get who had decided to dislike her on sight. Wonderful. Mila offered a light, polite smile nonethless. The introduction.. she guessed wasn't to her. It seemed she'd come to talk to Adam. However, to be polite, she repeated her own introduction. I'd be worse to ignore the woman than to offer it if she didn't want it.. So, she spoke up. "Mila Davis, Stormbreaker. Shadow Lord Galliard, Cliath and Alpha of Dark Sky."
Her attention then turned to Lila, and her story. She listened quietly, intently. And when she was finished.. she asked. "Did the Rite Mistress gain any great wisdom from his sacrafice?""
[Brass Petals] Her head tips to the side, one way, just a little. She watches, and it's familiar. One has to wonder, briefly, if her taking such immense joy in speaking about her packmates was a note of her youth or if it was a sign of strange devotion. Kora and Lila knew her when her sisters were gone, when they had left. She was decidedly different. She didn't feel the same. And she wasn't the same now that her sisters were back, either. [Stronger because (stronger in spite)]
Kora would like to speak with her, and so she nods. Once up, once down. Solemn. Kora is using honorable terms. Sorrow is using her voice.
She has no words, none yet. She doesn't ask any questions; the story makes perfect sense.
"Death is the road to awe," she repeats. Takes it like it has meaning. She starts to stand.
"Excuse me one moment, please," she says. The Fury takes a few steps back, and indicates to the graves nearby. She starts walking, slow enough for Sorrow to catch up
[Sorrow] Sorrow glances - direct, grave - from Mila to Lila, listens as Lila tells her story. Sorrow stands still and straight and tall then, too. There are wounds underneath her clothes, minor now. Healed, for the most part. The blood on her hands is not her own. Past the graves, amongst the shrines to the tribal and pack totems, a murder of Hrafn spirits are dark-winged over Fenris' blood shrine, feasting on the gelatinous eyeballs Sorrow extracted, returned to them, from her latest kill.
Sorrow and Adamidas fall into step together. Into an approximation of step together. Sorrow is taller than Adamidas, with long, long legs, and the natural swing of her gait is longer than the smaller Fury's stride. Say this: they walk together, dark and fair-haired, past the graves, some raw, others settling into the ground, others etched with names that almost no one in the Sept remembers, except those who come to the graves, except those who listen to the spirits of memory and history, to the twice-born and others of Owl's brood, to the Guardian's stories.
Sorrow says nothing as they walk. Her hands are still in her front pockets. It interrupts - just so - the curve of her gait, makes it more hip-slung than core-centered. There are bracelets on her wrists, and a choker wrapped around her neck, braided black leather. Sorrow says nothing as they walk until they are out of earshot of the other Galliards. Says nothing until they stand alongside - just beyond - rather than amongst the graves. The night is cool, and Sorrow's pale skin is a stark point of contrast with the darkness. Her eyes have lost the definition of color, become merely shadow, and her fine mouth is just turned up at the corner. Considered.
"Adamidas, Rain of Brass Petals-yuf," her voice is low. There is a rich undertone, direct, respectful, sure. "I've come to challenge you for Trent."
[Waking Dream] "Yes. From the first reading, she learned the hour that the enemies were going to strike again and what weakness they were going to exploit. From the second reading, she learned what was becoming of the firstborn children of the Fianna kinfolk of the Sept, and why. From the third reading," because, of course, there's always a third: "From the third reading," Lila repeats, after a pause - more softly. This, after she has tracked Adamidas, tracked She Who Offers Sorrow, away and over, winding deeper into the graves, "she learned the true name of a spirit who could bring back the long-dead."
[Brass Petals] "You've come to challenge me for Trent," she says. Her voice is flat. Her voice is surprisingly flat. She walks past the graves, knows them, knows them well enough to wonder, briefly, whether or not there is anyone missing. That not all those who deserve to be here are accounted for. Fallen and forgotten and lost. Someone misses them, families do. Packmates do, avatars and incarnae know their children are missing.
She waits, for a second. She doesn't look flat. She doesn't look anything other than pensive and thoughtful. Her moon is in the sky, and she is being challenged.
"Why do you issue this challenge, She who offers sorrow-yuf?"
And, for a second, it's not hard to think that she is close to fostern. That she is an asset to her tribe. That she is so much older than her body allows when her mind allows it.
[Mila Davis] "A great deed then." She didn't have much else to say. Clearly, she was still thinking on the story. Chin came to rest in her hands. And after a moment, she asked another question, wondering about the ending. "Whom did the sept ask the spirit to bring back?"
[Sorrow] The shadows cut long across Sorrow's face. They are standing on the concrete tarmac. The wind is cool, and pours in from the lake. There is a distinct scent of vegetable rot on the wind, faint and sure, which cuts through the harder, closer smells of concrete and dust, the freshly-turned earth of the graves. The blood-and-carrion surety of the offerings the Garou of the Sept have made to the blood-hungry spirits.
Pale against the darkness, tall and lean, her body sketching an inverse curve against the darkness, Sorrow watches Adamidas repeat her words, and then return a question. Sorrow is solemn and neutral. She swallows the half-smile that wants to twist across her expressive mouth at Adamidas' question, devours it, watching the younger woman with a close-eyed attention that is watchful, intent - not for signs or portents, not for secrets, just to see the way the ambient light crawls across the girl's features, the way the muscles move beneath her skin. Where bone shapes, and where it falls away. " - because," her rich voice, clear, "I want to claim him as my mate."
[Waking Dream] That question makes Lila smile. Lean back, lie down: just sort've drop. Sensualist, Lila, the way she feels the ground-beneath her, the way she stares, wide-eyed, at the sky overhead. "The Sept of the Fifth Stone is a multi-tribal Sept." Most Septs are, these days, in truth -- this doesn't mean they're usually peaceful Septs, or anyone [everyone] likes being forced to work with age-old enemies. "They'd recently lost their Master of Challenge. They'd also lost their Warder, and a new-Warder, green-still, was guarding the caern. Different tribes. And there was Resurrection, as well. Others, longer-dead. Each tribe wanted one of their own. Each tribe had a good story, a good reason. Was convincing."
[Brass Petals] [ Lalala, pay no attention!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Mila Davis] "How did they decide who to choose?" Hrm. An interesting situation. Hopefully, there was a wise Philodox there to help them decide; especially if the tribes weren't the best of friends.
[Waking Dream] "What would you have done? How would you have tried to untangle that knot?" Curious, that. A beat. And then: They didn't," she says, simply.
[Mila Davis] "Someone from outside.. someone impartial should listen to the pleas and decide who would be most beneifical for the Sept to have back. But, that is me, looking back. I cannot judge them in the situation.." a pause and then the 'they didn't'. "So, did they not get anyone back, or did the spirits choose?"
[Brass Petals] "So you've deigned the sons of Fenris insufficient? There are more than plenty of your tribemates here," she starts, "there are those who would serve Fenris openly, devotedly, completely... and you are wishing to take a purebred son of Pegasus as your mate. That... You are aware, and as a Galliard even more aware than I am, that our tribes do not coexist too easily. And that even gaffling spirits of Pegasus will not appear to any of Fenris' brood or blood unless to attack?"
She takes a second, and never did a crescent moon burn so brightly. She is looking at her, and she is reciting, reliving, relaying information about her tribe to this woman, one who would understand. Maybe it was the moon in the sky, or it could have been that she was so young, but she is looking at Kora so directly, and in this light her eyes are too dark. In this light, her jaw is angular and her hair falls in loose, half curls. She is too direct with Kora right now.
"This? Could very well be seen as an insult to the spirits," she says, "why do wish to take a Black Fury as a mate?"
[Waking Dream] They're galliards, not philodox; but it is true that galliards often hold the position of Master of Challenge. They know the history. They remember precedent. They've seen it before [they'll watch it agan]. This is why. These sort've exchanges. Lila exhales. This part of the story: this isn't what she'd say, what she'd include, if she was trying to bolster a sense of awe; if she was trying to inspire a sense of interest, of respect for Resurrection's sacrifice, she wouldn't continue beyond what she's already told Stormbreaker. However.
"No. The Mistress of the Rites was killed by the Sept's Wyrmfoe. Accidentally. He wasn't in frenzy. He didn't even see her. He playing a game. He was practicing blind-fighting. She fell, and Rage brought her back, but Furious, unable to focus, and she clawed her own throat open, and fell for the second time. The name of the spirit was gone with her."
[Waking Dream] ooc: ahem. "He didn't even see her. He was playing a game." Etcetera.
[Mila Davis] What an awful time to play a game. A game! She was horrified for a moment. So, the sept had lost pratically everyone - save for the foolish Wyrmfoe? What a world of trouble they were in. She shook her head sadly.
"Did the sept recover from their losses or did they faulter?" One could easily expect that the Sept could dissolve into conflict very easily at that point..
[Sorrow] "I don't want to claim a Black Fury," explains Sorrow, directly, patiently, quickly on the heels of Adamidas' question. There is a certain sharpness to the response, a certain brightness. "I want to claim Trent. The difference, I think, is clear. " There is a faint twist of her mouth at the end, passing.
Then, she continues, low and intent, her dark eyes sharp in Adamidas' own. "He's not a gaffling of Pegasus. He's a man. He's a kinsman. He bears the blood of your tribe, I know that. I've known that, and I do not make such a challenge lightly or without thought, for all the reasons you cited, and others. I want him. And he wants me. So: again, I challenge you for Trent."
[Waking Dream] "The Sept still stands, but of course they faltered. The Sept of the Fifth Stone doesn't often get new blood. There aren't -- hm. There aren't a lot of young and brave and bold and ready to tear the Wyrm's guts out flocking to those isolated rocks, ready to shore up the defenses when and where they fail." A brief pause, and then: "They came together, though: they survived. They are surviving now, and it's a beautiful place. Wild. Resurrection's sacrifice wasn't in vain, either. The first and second secrets read in his guts were still useful. And they weren't forgotten in the upheaval that followed."
[Brass Petals] There is a distant look for a second, like she's listening to something over the radio. She then phases back to Kora, "you've waited until you are ready to claim him to make us aware that you are courting him. The fact that neither of you have been forthright from the first of it all does not make well for your case, sorrow-yuf. Why did you not come to myself, or any of my sisters, to tell us of your intent earlier?"
She is far too even. Not tense, not yet anyway. But she is very much there, very much stark and stiff and waiting and ready.
"I do not doubt your devotion, and I do not doubt that both of you may have strong feelings for one another. Do you love him? If so, then why are you asking me to give him to you, with open hands, and cast him out of his tribe. It is cruel, and moreover, it is selfish."
To use such human terms.
She waits.
"Would you leave your tribe for him?"
[Mila Davis] Again, she nodded, thoughtfully this time. "An interesting tale. Thank you, Lila. I am sure there will be many others that we can share with each other. I have enjoyed this very much. It's not often I get to spend much time with other Galliards."
She paused a moment, glancing off in the direction that the Fury and the Get went. "What do you think that's about..?"
[Blood Summons] It's cold tonight. Overcast. Dreary. The sort of night where most of the city is curled up inside under blankets watching television or finishing their meals, their homework, trying to pretend as though spring has truly arrived and is moving towards summer rather than hovering in this strange half-land that more closely resembles autumn than anything else.
There is no sense of nearness that tells Lila that the grizzled Get of Fenris who has been sleeping in her bed is approaching. They have not yet bound themselves under a totem, do not yet have the other in their thoughts at all times; all she has is all anyone else has, which is the press of Rage coming out of the distance, the crunching of Umbral gravel beneath dedicated boots, the low sound of an abused voice humming to itself as its bearer moves through the ghostly landscape of the Sept's holy place.
He's not a stranger to any of them. He's more familiar to some of the females than the others, but they all recognize his figure by now, his clothes, his crazy-ass hair. His walk is loose and lupine, like an animal--monster--traipsing along the water. There is blood on his hands and forearms, in the hair on his chin. It's not his blood. They have no way of knowing this.
The Skald and the Theurge are given a nod of greeting, but he does not stop at the Graves to talk to them as he passes by, perhaps overhearing the fact that they're talking, perhaps thinking it to be of grave importance. They're spared for now. He moves towards the Fostern and the Shadow Lord.
[Waking Dream] [okay. if you ladies are in sight? here is a perception +empathy roll.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
to Brass Petals, Sorrow
[Waking Dream] Lila turns her head to peer into the graves. Does she make out the Fenrir skald and the Fury theurge, standing, wrapped [rapt] in discussion? If she does, she studies their silhouettes for a while, wonders on them -- and if she doesn't, she wonders at the gloom, fast-gathered, over the graves. Wonders at how completely, when the moon's just a sliver, it conceals. No. She does see them. Their silhouettes.
"What other Galliards here, at Maelstrom, have you spoken to?" -- that, just curiousity. "Other the Guardian, that is." And look, there is a Blood Summons, cutting out've the Graves, and Lila, who's looking in that direction, waves at him. He's also covered in blood for whatever reason. Doesn't look hurt, but she props herself up on her elbow, anyway, and gives the theurge a good look-over, once her gaze has been dragged away from Adamidas and Kora [concern (a touch of [spark])].
"And I don't know. Business, I'd guess. They get along, or they have in the past."
[Sorrow] "I have come to challenge you, now, Adamidas-yuf," says Sorrow, her voice still low, with an undergirding intensity. The creature's dark eyes gleam in the dim light, and her mouth thins, faintly, at the edges of her smile. " You are not his mother, nor are you his aunt, nor his cousin, nor his daughter, to require more than this of me, or of him. And, I think - " the creature pauses, her voice still low, " - that we have both had more pressing concerns in the last moon than whether or not I have been - as you say - courting your kinsman."
There is something absurd in the undercurrent. Adamidas is tight, stiff and waiting, her anger underneath her skin, under her body, in the air, in the moon above. Sorrow is tall, taller, stands to her full height, her narrow shoulders set and level, her spine straight, both present and distant. Adamidas asks if she loves him and Sorrow expels a breath between her nostrils, a short, sharp flare of a breath.
"Love, Adam," - and here, here, she seems rather more like a sister than a challenger. The diminutive is not meant to diminish, though. Sorrow is intent, aware. " - is a human term, and we are not human beings. Let me say to him what I have to say to him. I will tell you this: I have protected him from Jormungandr. I would disembowel anyone who tried to hurt him. I would die to defend him, but - "
A neat, shifting little pause. " - no. I would not leave my tribe for him. I belong first to Fenris. He knows this. He knows the consequences of this choice. He does not make it lightly, either."
[Brass Petals] [Keep. It. In. Check. Spending willpower if necessary]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 6, 8 (Failure at target 7)
[Mila Davis] Ugh. Bob was inbound. Too many Get. Yes, two were considered two too many. Mila remained comfortably seated on the ground, cross legged, beside Lila. A hand reached up to tuck a few strands of stray dark hair back behind an ear. The pair of them, Mila and Bob - just didn't get along. Must be like an oil and water thing. She offered a nod in greeting, but nothing further.
"Spoken to, or met? I suppose I haven't had any meaningful conversation with any of the other Galliards. I've met Kora.." She motioned to the Get down the way.. "And am passingly aquainted with Warcry." She shrugged slightly.
[Brass Petals] [Ack! Forgot to check the box!]
[Blood Summons] The last time Mila saw Blood Summons, he was decidedly intoxicated, sitting on a park bench in the sunlight with an empty bottle of whiskey and his tribeswoman. There is no whiskey in him now, nothing lubricating or hindering his actions; Lila waves, Mila gives a nod, and he returns the wave, returns the nod. His hands push themselves into the pockets of his slacks as his trajectory brings him to Lila's free side.
He nudges her with the side of his leg, lightly, but does not sit down yet.
"Ladies," he says, his tone dry, his voice as smokey and weathered as it ever is.
[Brass Petals] "I accept your challenge."
She is too damned still for this, and when she makes eye contact with Kora, it is hard. Harder than someone her age has any right to be.
"I will test your judgment, I will test your vision, and I will test your fury. And if you are found wanting in any of these categories you will fail," she says.
Silence.
"If a Black Fury can pass these trials, as all of us have, then surely you should have no problem. And you will, I hope, understand what you are depriving his daughters of. And possibly begin to understand what the blood and sacrifice and deeds of his ancestors means," she's quieter there. Resigned, but no less intense.
[Waking Dream] "You're blood-smattered," Lila says, to Blood Summons. "You hurt?" He doesn't seem hurt. Lila considers splashing him with water. Wash off. Doesn't, yet. The galliard turns the nudge into an exaggerated pantomime of OH NOES SO STRONG and rolls over onto her stomach and then her back again. Now she's closer to Mila, her side against the other galliard's knees or the curve of the other galliard's hip or something. Now, she's hauling herself up, sitting completely aright, hugging one knee to her chest, the other tucked beneath. Her gaze strays over to the Fenrir and the Fury in the graves, agan. Thoughtful, pensive. Watchful.
"Spoken to. Kora - she who offers sorrow - is one of the best." Simple. No adornment. Bare. "And I look forward to knowing her when she is a fostern, and then when she is an adren." There, pleasure, easy - dimple in one cheek, radiant, although this is steady, not blindly optimistic. Reverent, fervent.
[Sorrow] Sorrow nods, faintly, simply. "What are your terms?"
[/and, pause on my end. I think Adam can go back to the main scene now! I have to go to bed. Shouldn't've started this scene so late. :( thanks, though!]
[Mila Davis] "Blood Summons.." She quietly responds to his greeting of 'ladies.' Lila had asked the question she had pondered, so there was no use in repeating it. And if he was hurt, well.. it didn't look anywhere near serious enough that she should worry herself over it.
As Lila played and rolled over, Mila reached over and gave her a little poke in her side. It was playful, light. She was smiling. When she righted herself, and started to speak again, her gaze shifted to the Graves. Kora was one of the best? Interesting. Mila just nodded again - taking the information in, but not really commenting on it.
[Waking Dream] [OMG, I Am Not Ticklish WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
"I would love to meet her - I don't believe I've had the pleasure yet." Her gaze shifted again to the approaching figure. Another new face. Mila lifted a hand in greeting. She was dark haired, nearly black. Her eyes were the color of approaching storm clouds, a dark grey blue.
"Adam is it then." She smiled again.
[Sorrow] "We've met before," Sorrow comments, quiet to Mila. Her wide mouth has settled into its most neutral expression - which nevertheless curves faintly upward, as if she were always half-smiling. "Under less than ideal circumstances. I'm Kora EyjÛlfsdÛttir, she who offers sorrow to the Nation, cliath skald and daughter of great Fenris, fostered in the Sept of Wind and Rain in Hjaltland, of Aesir's Call."
Hands tucked neatly into the front pockets of her worn jeans, her narrow shoulders square beneath the old black t-shirt, Sorrow's dark eyes fix on Adamidas as she lights up, speaking about her pack. Her own face is still; she glances once at contemplative Lila, before returning her gaze to Adamidas. "I'd like to speak with you, Adamidas-yuf, when you're done here."
[Waking Dream] Here. Exhale. And then, low-voiced, intent: "This is important to me and you won't have heard it before. I'll tell you a story of a Sept I visited.
"Further North, though -- a sea-Sept, a wave-swept. But still, on this continent; off this continent. Place where five islands thrust close to each other, where rock is a bridge; place called the Sept of the Fifth Stone, place where sea-foam spirits gleam and glamour in the shape of wolves when the moon's waxing toward philodox, but still, still, is a Seer's moon. This is a story from when I was a cliath still, and my mission there was to give aid, so that, when my own Sept called for it, aid would be given.
"The Sept of the Fifth Stone was right in the middle of an area that was belabored, see; was under direct attack, much the way this Sept, here -- Maelstrom's Sept -- is under attack. They'd suffered losses, and recently."
Beat. "There was a philodox there. His name is Resurrection and his name is First Call. His name was also, before he died, Fulcrum's Measure. You would've liked to look at him: his hair so dark, and his eyes so bright; his teeth so crooked, his smile was always slanting. Uktena. That's what he was. Uktena, and mistrusted doubly because he followed Bear. His pack's name is -- and is still -- Winter Keeps In Store."
Another beat. "I was there when he died. I heard his last words. They were these: Death is the road to awe. That's what he said. Then he sank his own claws into his belly, pulled out his intestines, held them - gleaming, ropes - in his own hands for the Mistress of the Rite to read. He healed once from these self-inflicted wounds, and he did it again: tore his guts out, displayed them. When he died, he Raged back, too-weak to frenzy, too-close to death to be Rage's lover, and he did it a third time: tore his guts out, roped his intestines around his claws, held them up for the Mistress of the Rite to read. Said, again - in a voice weak as a cub's - Death is the road to awe."
[Mila Davis] Oh yes, one of the many Get who had decided to dislike her on sight. Wonderful. Mila offered a light, polite smile nonethless. The introduction.. she guessed wasn't to her. It seemed she'd come to talk to Adam. However, to be polite, she repeated her own introduction. I'd be worse to ignore the woman than to offer it if she didn't want it.. So, she spoke up. "Mila Davis, Stormbreaker. Shadow Lord Galliard, Cliath and Alpha of Dark Sky."
Her attention then turned to Lila, and her story. She listened quietly, intently. And when she was finished.. she asked. "Did the Rite Mistress gain any great wisdom from his sacrafice?""
[Brass Petals] Her head tips to the side, one way, just a little. She watches, and it's familiar. One has to wonder, briefly, if her taking such immense joy in speaking about her packmates was a note of her youth or if it was a sign of strange devotion. Kora and Lila knew her when her sisters were gone, when they had left. She was decidedly different. She didn't feel the same. And she wasn't the same now that her sisters were back, either. [Stronger because (stronger in spite)]
Kora would like to speak with her, and so she nods. Once up, once down. Solemn. Kora is using honorable terms. Sorrow is using her voice.
She has no words, none yet. She doesn't ask any questions; the story makes perfect sense.
"Death is the road to awe," she repeats. Takes it like it has meaning. She starts to stand.
"Excuse me one moment, please," she says. The Fury takes a few steps back, and indicates to the graves nearby. She starts walking, slow enough for Sorrow to catch up
[Sorrow] Sorrow glances - direct, grave - from Mila to Lila, listens as Lila tells her story. Sorrow stands still and straight and tall then, too. There are wounds underneath her clothes, minor now. Healed, for the most part. The blood on her hands is not her own. Past the graves, amongst the shrines to the tribal and pack totems, a murder of Hrafn spirits are dark-winged over Fenris' blood shrine, feasting on the gelatinous eyeballs Sorrow extracted, returned to them, from her latest kill.
Sorrow and Adamidas fall into step together. Into an approximation of step together. Sorrow is taller than Adamidas, with long, long legs, and the natural swing of her gait is longer than the smaller Fury's stride. Say this: they walk together, dark and fair-haired, past the graves, some raw, others settling into the ground, others etched with names that almost no one in the Sept remembers, except those who come to the graves, except those who listen to the spirits of memory and history, to the twice-born and others of Owl's brood, to the Guardian's stories.
Sorrow says nothing as they walk. Her hands are still in her front pockets. It interrupts - just so - the curve of her gait, makes it more hip-slung than core-centered. There are bracelets on her wrists, and a choker wrapped around her neck, braided black leather. Sorrow says nothing as they walk until they are out of earshot of the other Galliards. Says nothing until they stand alongside - just beyond - rather than amongst the graves. The night is cool, and Sorrow's pale skin is a stark point of contrast with the darkness. Her eyes have lost the definition of color, become merely shadow, and her fine mouth is just turned up at the corner. Considered.
"Adamidas, Rain of Brass Petals-yuf," her voice is low. There is a rich undertone, direct, respectful, sure. "I've come to challenge you for Trent."
[Waking Dream] "Yes. From the first reading, she learned the hour that the enemies were going to strike again and what weakness they were going to exploit. From the second reading, she learned what was becoming of the firstborn children of the Fianna kinfolk of the Sept, and why. From the third reading," because, of course, there's always a third: "From the third reading," Lila repeats, after a pause - more softly. This, after she has tracked Adamidas, tracked She Who Offers Sorrow, away and over, winding deeper into the graves, "she learned the true name of a spirit who could bring back the long-dead."
[Brass Petals] "You've come to challenge me for Trent," she says. Her voice is flat. Her voice is surprisingly flat. She walks past the graves, knows them, knows them well enough to wonder, briefly, whether or not there is anyone missing. That not all those who deserve to be here are accounted for. Fallen and forgotten and lost. Someone misses them, families do. Packmates do, avatars and incarnae know their children are missing.
She waits, for a second. She doesn't look flat. She doesn't look anything other than pensive and thoughtful. Her moon is in the sky, and she is being challenged.
"Why do you issue this challenge, She who offers sorrow-yuf?"
And, for a second, it's not hard to think that she is close to fostern. That she is an asset to her tribe. That she is so much older than her body allows when her mind allows it.
[Mila Davis] "A great deed then." She didn't have much else to say. Clearly, she was still thinking on the story. Chin came to rest in her hands. And after a moment, she asked another question, wondering about the ending. "Whom did the sept ask the spirit to bring back?"
[Sorrow] The shadows cut long across Sorrow's face. They are standing on the concrete tarmac. The wind is cool, and pours in from the lake. There is a distinct scent of vegetable rot on the wind, faint and sure, which cuts through the harder, closer smells of concrete and dust, the freshly-turned earth of the graves. The blood-and-carrion surety of the offerings the Garou of the Sept have made to the blood-hungry spirits.
Pale against the darkness, tall and lean, her body sketching an inverse curve against the darkness, Sorrow watches Adamidas repeat her words, and then return a question. Sorrow is solemn and neutral. She swallows the half-smile that wants to twist across her expressive mouth at Adamidas' question, devours it, watching the younger woman with a close-eyed attention that is watchful, intent - not for signs or portents, not for secrets, just to see the way the ambient light crawls across the girl's features, the way the muscles move beneath her skin. Where bone shapes, and where it falls away. " - because," her rich voice, clear, "I want to claim him as my mate."
[Waking Dream] That question makes Lila smile. Lean back, lie down: just sort've drop. Sensualist, Lila, the way she feels the ground-beneath her, the way she stares, wide-eyed, at the sky overhead. "The Sept of the Fifth Stone is a multi-tribal Sept." Most Septs are, these days, in truth -- this doesn't mean they're usually peaceful Septs, or anyone [everyone] likes being forced to work with age-old enemies. "They'd recently lost their Master of Challenge. They'd also lost their Warder, and a new-Warder, green-still, was guarding the caern. Different tribes. And there was Resurrection, as well. Others, longer-dead. Each tribe wanted one of their own. Each tribe had a good story, a good reason. Was convincing."
[Brass Petals] [ Lalala, pay no attention!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Mila Davis] "How did they decide who to choose?" Hrm. An interesting situation. Hopefully, there was a wise Philodox there to help them decide; especially if the tribes weren't the best of friends.
[Waking Dream] "What would you have done? How would you have tried to untangle that knot?" Curious, that. A beat. And then: They didn't," she says, simply.
[Mila Davis] "Someone from outside.. someone impartial should listen to the pleas and decide who would be most beneifical for the Sept to have back. But, that is me, looking back. I cannot judge them in the situation.." a pause and then the 'they didn't'. "So, did they not get anyone back, or did the spirits choose?"
[Brass Petals] "So you've deigned the sons of Fenris insufficient? There are more than plenty of your tribemates here," she starts, "there are those who would serve Fenris openly, devotedly, completely... and you are wishing to take a purebred son of Pegasus as your mate. That... You are aware, and as a Galliard even more aware than I am, that our tribes do not coexist too easily. And that even gaffling spirits of Pegasus will not appear to any of Fenris' brood or blood unless to attack?"
She takes a second, and never did a crescent moon burn so brightly. She is looking at her, and she is reciting, reliving, relaying information about her tribe to this woman, one who would understand. Maybe it was the moon in the sky, or it could have been that she was so young, but she is looking at Kora so directly, and in this light her eyes are too dark. In this light, her jaw is angular and her hair falls in loose, half curls. She is too direct with Kora right now.
"This? Could very well be seen as an insult to the spirits," she says, "why do wish to take a Black Fury as a mate?"
[Waking Dream] They're galliards, not philodox; but it is true that galliards often hold the position of Master of Challenge. They know the history. They remember precedent. They've seen it before [they'll watch it agan]. This is why. These sort've exchanges. Lila exhales. This part of the story: this isn't what she'd say, what she'd include, if she was trying to bolster a sense of awe; if she was trying to inspire a sense of interest, of respect for Resurrection's sacrifice, she wouldn't continue beyond what she's already told Stormbreaker. However.
"No. The Mistress of the Rites was killed by the Sept's Wyrmfoe. Accidentally. He wasn't in frenzy. He didn't even see her. He playing a game. He was practicing blind-fighting. She fell, and Rage brought her back, but Furious, unable to focus, and she clawed her own throat open, and fell for the second time. The name of the spirit was gone with her."
[Waking Dream] ooc: ahem. "He didn't even see her. He was playing a game." Etcetera.
[Mila Davis] What an awful time to play a game. A game! She was horrified for a moment. So, the sept had lost pratically everyone - save for the foolish Wyrmfoe? What a world of trouble they were in. She shook her head sadly.
"Did the sept recover from their losses or did they faulter?" One could easily expect that the Sept could dissolve into conflict very easily at that point..
[Sorrow] "I don't want to claim a Black Fury," explains Sorrow, directly, patiently, quickly on the heels of Adamidas' question. There is a certain sharpness to the response, a certain brightness. "I want to claim Trent. The difference, I think, is clear. " There is a faint twist of her mouth at the end, passing.
Then, she continues, low and intent, her dark eyes sharp in Adamidas' own. "He's not a gaffling of Pegasus. He's a man. He's a kinsman. He bears the blood of your tribe, I know that. I've known that, and I do not make such a challenge lightly or without thought, for all the reasons you cited, and others. I want him. And he wants me. So: again, I challenge you for Trent."
[Waking Dream] "The Sept still stands, but of course they faltered. The Sept of the Fifth Stone doesn't often get new blood. There aren't -- hm. There aren't a lot of young and brave and bold and ready to tear the Wyrm's guts out flocking to those isolated rocks, ready to shore up the defenses when and where they fail." A brief pause, and then: "They came together, though: they survived. They are surviving now, and it's a beautiful place. Wild. Resurrection's sacrifice wasn't in vain, either. The first and second secrets read in his guts were still useful. And they weren't forgotten in the upheaval that followed."
[Brass Petals] There is a distant look for a second, like she's listening to something over the radio. She then phases back to Kora, "you've waited until you are ready to claim him to make us aware that you are courting him. The fact that neither of you have been forthright from the first of it all does not make well for your case, sorrow-yuf. Why did you not come to myself, or any of my sisters, to tell us of your intent earlier?"
She is far too even. Not tense, not yet anyway. But she is very much there, very much stark and stiff and waiting and ready.
"I do not doubt your devotion, and I do not doubt that both of you may have strong feelings for one another. Do you love him? If so, then why are you asking me to give him to you, with open hands, and cast him out of his tribe. It is cruel, and moreover, it is selfish."
To use such human terms.
She waits.
"Would you leave your tribe for him?"
[Mila Davis] Again, she nodded, thoughtfully this time. "An interesting tale. Thank you, Lila. I am sure there will be many others that we can share with each other. I have enjoyed this very much. It's not often I get to spend much time with other Galliards."
She paused a moment, glancing off in the direction that the Fury and the Get went. "What do you think that's about..?"
[Blood Summons] It's cold tonight. Overcast. Dreary. The sort of night where most of the city is curled up inside under blankets watching television or finishing their meals, their homework, trying to pretend as though spring has truly arrived and is moving towards summer rather than hovering in this strange half-land that more closely resembles autumn than anything else.
There is no sense of nearness that tells Lila that the grizzled Get of Fenris who has been sleeping in her bed is approaching. They have not yet bound themselves under a totem, do not yet have the other in their thoughts at all times; all she has is all anyone else has, which is the press of Rage coming out of the distance, the crunching of Umbral gravel beneath dedicated boots, the low sound of an abused voice humming to itself as its bearer moves through the ghostly landscape of the Sept's holy place.
He's not a stranger to any of them. He's more familiar to some of the females than the others, but they all recognize his figure by now, his clothes, his crazy-ass hair. His walk is loose and lupine, like an animal--monster--traipsing along the water. There is blood on his hands and forearms, in the hair on his chin. It's not his blood. They have no way of knowing this.
The Skald and the Theurge are given a nod of greeting, but he does not stop at the Graves to talk to them as he passes by, perhaps overhearing the fact that they're talking, perhaps thinking it to be of grave importance. They're spared for now. He moves towards the Fostern and the Shadow Lord.
[Waking Dream] [okay. if you ladies are in sight? here is a perception +empathy roll.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
to Brass Petals, Sorrow
[Waking Dream] Lila turns her head to peer into the graves. Does she make out the Fenrir skald and the Fury theurge, standing, wrapped [rapt] in discussion? If she does, she studies their silhouettes for a while, wonders on them -- and if she doesn't, she wonders at the gloom, fast-gathered, over the graves. Wonders at how completely, when the moon's just a sliver, it conceals. No. She does see them. Their silhouettes.
"What other Galliards here, at Maelstrom, have you spoken to?" -- that, just curiousity. "Other the Guardian, that is." And look, there is a Blood Summons, cutting out've the Graves, and Lila, who's looking in that direction, waves at him. He's also covered in blood for whatever reason. Doesn't look hurt, but she props herself up on her elbow, anyway, and gives the theurge a good look-over, once her gaze has been dragged away from Adamidas and Kora [concern (a touch of [spark])].
"And I don't know. Business, I'd guess. They get along, or they have in the past."
[Sorrow] "I have come to challenge you, now, Adamidas-yuf," says Sorrow, her voice still low, with an undergirding intensity. The creature's dark eyes gleam in the dim light, and her mouth thins, faintly, at the edges of her smile. " You are not his mother, nor are you his aunt, nor his cousin, nor his daughter, to require more than this of me, or of him. And, I think - " the creature pauses, her voice still low, " - that we have both had more pressing concerns in the last moon than whether or not I have been - as you say - courting your kinsman."
There is something absurd in the undercurrent. Adamidas is tight, stiff and waiting, her anger underneath her skin, under her body, in the air, in the moon above. Sorrow is tall, taller, stands to her full height, her narrow shoulders set and level, her spine straight, both present and distant. Adamidas asks if she loves him and Sorrow expels a breath between her nostrils, a short, sharp flare of a breath.
"Love, Adam," - and here, here, she seems rather more like a sister than a challenger. The diminutive is not meant to diminish, though. Sorrow is intent, aware. " - is a human term, and we are not human beings. Let me say to him what I have to say to him. I will tell you this: I have protected him from Jormungandr. I would disembowel anyone who tried to hurt him. I would die to defend him, but - "
A neat, shifting little pause. " - no. I would not leave my tribe for him. I belong first to Fenris. He knows this. He knows the consequences of this choice. He does not make it lightly, either."
[Brass Petals] [Keep. It. In. Check. Spending willpower if necessary]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 6, 8 (Failure at target 7)
[Mila Davis] Ugh. Bob was inbound. Too many Get. Yes, two were considered two too many. Mila remained comfortably seated on the ground, cross legged, beside Lila. A hand reached up to tuck a few strands of stray dark hair back behind an ear. The pair of them, Mila and Bob - just didn't get along. Must be like an oil and water thing. She offered a nod in greeting, but nothing further.
"Spoken to, or met? I suppose I haven't had any meaningful conversation with any of the other Galliards. I've met Kora.." She motioned to the Get down the way.. "And am passingly aquainted with Warcry." She shrugged slightly.
[Brass Petals] [Ack! Forgot to check the box!]
[Blood Summons] The last time Mila saw Blood Summons, he was decidedly intoxicated, sitting on a park bench in the sunlight with an empty bottle of whiskey and his tribeswoman. There is no whiskey in him now, nothing lubricating or hindering his actions; Lila waves, Mila gives a nod, and he returns the wave, returns the nod. His hands push themselves into the pockets of his slacks as his trajectory brings him to Lila's free side.
He nudges her with the side of his leg, lightly, but does not sit down yet.
"Ladies," he says, his tone dry, his voice as smokey and weathered as it ever is.
[Brass Petals] "I accept your challenge."
She is too damned still for this, and when she makes eye contact with Kora, it is hard. Harder than someone her age has any right to be.
"I will test your judgment, I will test your vision, and I will test your fury. And if you are found wanting in any of these categories you will fail," she says.
Silence.
"If a Black Fury can pass these trials, as all of us have, then surely you should have no problem. And you will, I hope, understand what you are depriving his daughters of. And possibly begin to understand what the blood and sacrifice and deeds of his ancestors means," she's quieter there. Resigned, but no less intense.
[Waking Dream] "You're blood-smattered," Lila says, to Blood Summons. "You hurt?" He doesn't seem hurt. Lila considers splashing him with water. Wash off. Doesn't, yet. The galliard turns the nudge into an exaggerated pantomime of OH NOES SO STRONG and rolls over onto her stomach and then her back again. Now she's closer to Mila, her side against the other galliard's knees or the curve of the other galliard's hip or something. Now, she's hauling herself up, sitting completely aright, hugging one knee to her chest, the other tucked beneath. Her gaze strays over to the Fenrir and the Fury in the graves, agan. Thoughtful, pensive. Watchful.
"Spoken to. Kora - she who offers sorrow - is one of the best." Simple. No adornment. Bare. "And I look forward to knowing her when she is a fostern, and then when she is an adren." There, pleasure, easy - dimple in one cheek, radiant, although this is steady, not blindly optimistic. Reverent, fervent.
[Sorrow] Sorrow nods, faintly, simply. "What are your terms?"
[/and, pause on my end. I think Adam can go back to the main scene now! I have to go to bed. Shouldn't've started this scene so late. :( thanks, though!]
[Mila Davis] "Blood Summons.." She quietly responds to his greeting of 'ladies.' Lila had asked the question she had pondered, so there was no use in repeating it. And if he was hurt, well.. it didn't look anywhere near serious enough that she should worry herself over it.
As Lila played and rolled over, Mila reached over and gave her a little poke in her side. It was playful, light. She was smiling. When she righted herself, and started to speak again, her gaze shifted to the Graves. Kora was one of the best? Interesting. Mila just nodded again - taking the information in, but not really commenting on it.
[Waking Dream] [OMG, I Am Not Ticklish WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)
